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Objective of this deck:
Explain what technology can be useful for - and what its common characteristics are - e.g. why and when might you use it? This deck also raises the question “and is that a good thing?”
What technology can do
Why and when might technology be useful?
1. Speeding things up
Here are some example of how technology can speed things up and why that might be useful.
By allowing patients to manage their care online, DrDoctor is achieving better outcomes, a higher degree of productivity for hospitals, and a more comfortable, controlled experience for patients.
An unintended consequence?
Raising patient expectations for booking an appointment might raise expectations for other parts of their service experience, adding workload for hospital staff. It’s not a reason not to innovate!
During the Nepal earthquake, they undertook open, collaborative mapping to help build up a more accurate picture of roads and other geography so that aid could reach those most in need, more quickly.
2. Finding things
It’s said that you can find anything online – and the capacity of the web for storing huge amounts of information opens up all sorts of possibilities.
They created a mapping tool that uses data to predict potential areas of “unmet” need. This will help them to find where need for the trust’s services may be greatest across the country.
Eventually, this became a way for doctors to compare what they were prescribing with other practitioners, highlighting ways for the NHS to reduce costs by £200m.
3. Opening up
While there are legitimate considerations about the protection of our data, it is crucial to remember that technology is still driving forward a transparency revolution.
Provides citizens with information about their local MP, from how they have voted to videos of the MP in debates, promoting a more knowledgeable and politically active population.
Advancing citizen-led transparency, Alaveteli is a platform for Freedom of Information that allows citizens to inquire and prod public authorities on issues they feel strongly about.
Alaveteli automatically publishes the Q&A sessions, making them available online for all to see. The platform can be put to use in any country, regardless of its language or legislation.
Shedding light on the use of conflict minerals in electronic devices through accessing data on supply chains and opening up the data on their own supply chains.
In 2013, the outfit developed the first ‘Fairphone’, created with materials that support local economies, and have sold 100,000+ Fairphones.
A peer-to-peer energy marketplace, giving consumers real choice in where their power comes from.
4. Creating new communities
We all know about Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. But the internet is also providing new, innovative and effective ways for people to convene, participate and share knowledge in communities.
Allowing people with health conditions to reach out to others with similar conditions.
By comparing their symptoms and treatment experiences, patients are able to build community around a common theme and find new forms of support. The site also gives people the option to share their health data for future medical research.
75% of the world’s population does not have access to the Internet. �We Farm is a hub for small-scale farmers living in remote, isolated corners of the world.
Members of We Farm can ask questions and give farming advice by sending a text message, such as: ‘How do we control coffee rust disease?’
We Farm then uses a peer-to-peer translation system to disseminate the response to the question to the rest of the We Farm community.
Now, farmers in Kenya are communicating with farmers in Peru, and a whole new community has been born.
A crowdfunding platform built to connect people seeking to tackle homelessness with those experiencing it.
People directly support individuals to make their way out of homelessness, into training and stable paid work based on their skills and interests.
Charities and councils refer individuals to Beam, where they are supported to develop a personalised career plan before launching an online campaign. Beam members then donate and stay in touch with the person they fund through live updates and supportive comments.
5. Revealing things
Technology can reflect information back to us, with open data and live dashboards allowing for more evidenced stories.
From divorce, to resigning from work, to seeking British citizenship, to bereavement benefits. Live Advice Tracker is a real-time snapshot of what is really going on in people’s lives.
People submit where they were asked to pay a bribe, what for and how much, and the site submits a report to media and government officials.
Designed to end the culture of impunity around sexual harassment and assault in Egypt, a country where 83% of women, and 98% of foreign women, have experienced sexual assault.
Popular GPS navigation software that crowdsources data to provide driving directions, live traffic information and road alerts. Began life as a community project called FreeMap Israel and later bought by Google in 2013.
An unintended consequence?
While Waze has revealed new routes that avoid traffic, this has created challenges for urban planning by directing traffic to roads that were never designed for large amounts of cars.
6. Changing cultures
The culture of digital working – agile, user-centred, transparent – creates more efficient public services.
A comprehensive compilation of 25 ministerial departments and 405 agencies and public bodies, transitioned across from the old Government site by the Government Digital Service.
‘A new vision for digital government; a common core infrastructure of shared digital systems, technology and processes on which it’s easy to build brilliant, user-centric government services.’
This approach to building digital services has brought new skills, mindset and ways of working into government, and the focus on meeting user need means that people are finding government services easier to use and access. Hear some people’s stories.
7. New possibilities
The web is also making use of human ingenuity, stretching our imaginations in terms of what is possible and allowing for inventions that a few decades ago we just wouldn’t have thought possible.
Netra defines their mission as being to ‘give everyone access to the vision correction they need to see the world’.
Andiamo ensures ‘that no child anywhere in the world has to wait more than a week for their medical device.’ Starting in the field of orthotics, they use 3D scanning and printing technology to create an orthotic device in just 48 hours.
Created the world’s first 3D-printing prosthetic lab, in a remote community in South Sudan.
The 3D-printing prosthetic lab allows victims of conflict to get access to a limb, costing just hundreds instead of tens of thousands of pounds.
An unintended consequence?
3D printing can cheaply manufacture products and release the creativity of entrepreneurs. But people are also using the technology to print guns. How should lawmakers respond?
Digitally-manufactured building system that helps anyone to design, manufacture and assemble a low-cost, low-carbon home.
WikiHouse uses the web to change the way homes are built. By taking an ecosystems approach, they address many social issues, from housing shortage to urban wellbeing to climate crisis.